Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
DAL88, reality is that the last six year have sucked for you; since CH11. About 20% of your career.
I see the act of an independent union as selfish and self serving. It may get you something you want in the short term, maybe. I still see that as unlikely. Look no further to APA to see what happens when that process has been employed.
From your perspective, the last six years have been pretty darn good for you. You finally made it to the big leagues. The money's not great, or even what you expected when you got into the career... but, hey, at least you're finally here. You're a really good networker, and you've established quite a reputation as the great "dot connector" here on APC. Wouldn't want to do anything to rock the boat with any possibility of making things less stable and having some kind of glitch that might hamper whatever ladder you're trying to climb. How am I doing so far?
As for the APA. This is the same crap that the ALPA apologists bring up every time. I think I've been pretty clear that, while I like APA's former focus on objective, I'm not a fan of the "burn down the house" mentality. I think a combination of proactive engagement and assertively advocating that our profession be returned to its appropriate place (and a willingness to stand our ground) is the strategy that is most likely to yield results. Right now, we have the former without the latter.
Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
DAL88, we had a merger a JPWA that extended the contract two years. Look at the realities. We as a group voted overwhelmingly for it. I could see your point if we had a section six process or we had a JPWA with another concluded section six process before the JPWA, but we have not. There has not been one other group that has gone drastically ahead of us. Use SWAPA, fine, but the fact is that our JPWA, the last agreement that we had up for MEMRAT was done a little over a year after we exited CH11, and we had only two profitable quarters and four very unprofitable quarters leading up to that. After it was signed DAL took billions in right offs, and lost billions. We did not enter in to another concessionary agreement, and did not furlough. It may be easy to forget that, but the fact is that it could have been a lot worse.
Going forward, pray and hope that when it is our turn at the plate, UCAL and APA have had agreements that have built on ours. It makes DALPA's job of obtaining what you want that much easier. Like I have said, you are frustrated, and as I have said DPA has some great points, but fix them from within. Let DALPA do what it does best, negotiate a section six agreement. You have not even allowed that to happen. Heck we may get put in to another merger and have another type of event that we had with our last merger. Reality is that we as a company and a industry are in a different place today. It may not be that way tomorrow, but today we are. Look at the big picture and realize that your DALPA and ALPA teams are doing everything they can to get us what we want. Reality is that no that much time has passed since CH11 and we have not had the opportunity at the correct time to put the power of DALPA and ALPA to task. We are getting to that time that we will. Engage, and unify with the process. The current actions of dividing this group will hamper that process, and further enrage you. Stop it and better all of the Delta Pilot's chances of getting the most they can out of the process.
This is all a big load of crap. Sorry. We've been out of bankruptcy for almost half a decade. And yet we're still being compensated as if we are still in bankruptcy and in danger of liquidation. This is a no brainer. The right thing to do is to increase our compensation NOW to bring it to an appropriate level. SWA, as our soon to be biggest competitor in ATL, provides a decent benchmark for what the market will bear for pilots in the airline industry TODAY. This shouldn't be our ultimate objective. But it would be a good start... a partial pay restoration that would bring our average W-2's in line with the W-2's of SWA pilots. I cannot think of ANY valid reason why ALPA would not be pursuing this ASAP. Heck, we even had a couple of resolutions passed to this effect. And ALPA basically ignored them! If the company says yes, then we get a good start towards restoration. If they say no, then we know where we stand, what kind of management we're really dealing with, and how to better proceed going forward. Instead, you ask us to all put our careers and our family's financial futures in the hands of what some other pilot group may or may not do? You're going to pin all our hopes to "pattern bargaining" and how it might benefit us 2 or 3 years from now? Holy cow! What are you thinking, man?? I want the people representing me to be advocating that we are compensated appropriately and that Delta pilots fly Delta passengers. The best way for this profession to be advanced is for the largest airline pilot group to achieve restoration. This kumbaya, group hug stuff you're advocating for our entire profession is just not going to translate into real results... for the pilots. It might for ALPA, the organization/business. But not for the pilots.
Sorry for the rant. This stuff just really ****es me off, and I'm reaching the absolute end of my patience with ALPA and their crap.